SAN JOSE — Just as the Bellarmine Bells had won at Mitty three weeks ago with a strong fourth quarter, the Monarchs won on the Bells’ home floor Friday night in eerily similar fashion.
In a near-perfect role reversal, it was Mitty playing airtight defense down the stretch and sucking the life out of the Bells for a 59-55 road win before a packed house to stay within a game of first place in the West Catholic Athletic League.
“We really tried to clog it up and make it difficult for them to get paint space,” Monarchs head coach Tim Kennedy said following the win. “Last game we didn’t have a great flow with our offense because they clogged it up and we stood around.”
This time, it was second-ranked Bellarmine (16-3, 6-3 WCAL) getting stymied on offense in the late stages, going scoreless for two-and-a-half minutes with the game on the line. Ian Elam scored off the glass with 2:46 left to tie the game at 52, but the Bells wouldn’t score again until a desperation Quinn Denker 3-pointer with 10.3 seconds remaining with the game all but finished.
In that time, the Monarchs managed to score seven straight to put the game away, with the go-ahead basket fittingly coming from Owen Browne with 2:15 to go. Browne, who’s become a far more prominent player in Mitty’s system as a senior, had 15 points and a game-high five assists.
“I’m just trying to play my game like I usually do,” said Browne, whose 15 points trailed only Mikey Mitchell’s 18. Foul trouble kept Marcus Greene from adding to his seven points in the second half, but sophomore Aidan Burke was huge for the third-ranked Monarchs, with all eight of his points and six of his eight rebounds coming after the break.
“He’s been great in practice,” said Kennedy, who’s seen more than a few underclassmen play games like Burke’s. “He’s done a heck of a job running our scout team. He keeps getting better and his confidence is growing. He’s one of our best offensive rebounders.”
Burke showed off those skills on the offensive glass with an and-1 on a putback to tie the game at 42 in the third, and he’d get the final basket of the third to answer a Josiah Ajiake layup before opening the fourth with a block at one end and a 3-pointer at the other to put Mitty (16-3, 7-2) up five. Mitchell, who had no trouble scoring despite a nagging wrist injury, scored in transition off a Greene assist, but Bellarmine would get seven straight points over the next four minutes to tie it, capped off by the last of Elam’s seven points.
After that, Browne would score and, after a missed Denker three, the Monarchs would run down the shot clock and get one of their biggest shots of the night, a Mason Ryan three. Even when Browne missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 31.6 left, Denker would miss another three and Ryan would take away any suspense with two free throws, starting the exodus from what had been a packed house.
“Tonight we never really got in a rhythm,” said Denker, who scored a team-high 12 points, all in the second half, but shot 5-of-19. “They beat us down the floor, and we never really got back, which we did last time.”
Even with Denker’s struggles, including seven missed threes in the first half, the Bells trailed just 30-26 behind seven points from Anthony Piro, who played a more prominent role with Ridley Ruth out (concussion protocol). Josiah Ajiake also scored five of his seven in the opening 16 minutes, including a one-handed dunk that nearly brought the house down to tie the game at 26. Over the next two-plus minutes, Bellarmine wouldn’t score again, with Mitty taking the lead into the half on a bucket by Greene and two Arrish Bhandal free throws.
With Ruth and Constantijn Cole (ankle) both unavailable, Ajiake’s seven points and Jackson Dupree’s 10 would have made headlines as the Bells didn’t look to be shorthanded at all.
“One of the things we talked about as a staff after talking with our team was really opening up conversations about who’s playing and how much they’re playing,” Bellarmine head coach Patrick Schneider said. “Josiah’s at the top of that list.”
It’s easy to tell that Schneider has loved Ajiake’s play over the last two years, whether it’s been a couple minutes off the bench as a junior or a more visible role as a senior. The lengthy 6-foot-3 forward is one of the most fluid players the Bells have on their roster, and it showed Friday night as he was one of the most efficient players on a team where rhythm was otherwise hard to come by.
“We talked about it after the game, I’m kind of the glue guy that holds the team together,” Ajiake said. “My role on the court isn’t really to score: it’s to get rebounds and make hustle plays.”
Rebounds and hustle plays fueled the Bells to their best stretch of the game, a 10-0 run in the third quarter. Denker, who went 2-of-11 from beyond the arc, finally hit a three, then proceeded to tie the game at 37 on a steal and layup. He’d miss the free throw to follow that would have put Bellarmine in front, but he made up for it on the next possession with another layup off a steal. A 3-pointer by Dupree put the hosts up five, but the Bells, who went just 5-of-26 as a team from beyond the arc, wouldn’t connect again from downtown until the final seconds. Mitchell would slice to the hoop to end the run, Burke would tie the game with an and-1 and Browne hit the last of his three 3-pointers to put Mitty ahead. Bellarmine would tie the game late in the quarter before Burke scored again, but the hosts would never lead the rest of the way.
The loss is a devastating one for the Bells’ league title hopes, putting them two games behind Riordan with five to go.
“We had a retreat and some team-building stuff this week, and I feel like we didn’t really focus on Mitty as much as we should have,” Denker said. “We need to take what we did wrong in this game and incorporate it into those tough games coming up.”
The Bells travel to Serra (14-5, 6-3) next Tuesday and host first-place Riordan (17-2, 8-1) next Friday. The Monarchs will play both of those teams the following week, and like they did on Friday, they’ll be doing so as the smaller team on the floor. Even with the 6-9 Bhandal, Mitty is almost always the undersized team, but the Bells failed to capitalize, with Elam and Ryan Kiachian scoring just seven points apiece.
“We lacked tempo and physicality with our offense until we thought we were going to shoot the ball, and then we shot it really fast,” Schneider said. “We’ve lost two home games where we could be a bit more dominant in the paint.”
No. 7 St. Francis 53, No. 17 Valley Christian 44
Faced with a sold-out crowd for Valley Christian’s annual Silent Night game, the St. Francis Lancers trailed by six for most of the first half but evened things up by the break before grinding out a road win. Trevor Leon led St. Francis (13-6, 5-4) with 22 points and sophomore Harlan Banks had a career-high 20, while Valley Christian (8-11, 0-9) got 17 from Aleksa Jovanovic and 12 from Pawllos Habtom.
